Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Current lamb count: 31. Days into lambing season: 19. Sets of twins: 11. Sets of triplets: 2. Number of mothers so far: 16. Pregnant ewes remaining: 4. Pregnant ewes who don't look very pregnant: 2. Number of lambs who checked out of the Bonding Suite Inn this morning (along with their mothers) and are spending the day sacked out in the sunny barnyard (when they're not racing around in circles) : 9.

Number of consecutive hours I spent in bed last night: 8 (which was higher than 4 for the first time in 18 days—midnight to 8am, but I'm still exhausted). Number of bottle lambs not happy about that number: 3. Gallons of raw Jersey milk we'll probably go through this week: 7.

Number of laughs caused by watching 28 lambs running around loose in the quarter-acre barnyard: I already lost count.

17 comments:

What great pictures and what wonderful livestock guardians all the dogs are! I'm glad everything is going well for you guys for lambing season! :)Get some sleep, those babies won't starve, despite what they tell you! LOL!!

Hi Candy,Yeah, it's funny how the end of lambing (which means the end of my nightly 2am or 3am hikes down to the barn) always coincides with the time those bottle lambs stop needing that middle of the night feeding. ;)

I'm having so much fun watching all four dogs with the lambs this year. Daisy and Bert (aka Nurse Daisy and the Nanny Bear) spend most of lambing season with huge grins on their faces - when they're not passed out from exhaustion (or all the excitement). ;)

Such nice photos---especially Lucky Buddy Bear surrounded by his beloved lambs! Do you ever use the "lamb bar" bucket with the nipples for bottle babies? They take care of themselves so you are free to do other things. I love hearing how well your lambing has gone this year. The weather helps so much. We are late lambing this season---they start next week with the exception of a few early-birds.Thank you for sharing the experience. If only we could bottle what watching the lambs run around feels like! Can't hold back a smile, can you? No matter how often you see it.They're spring loaded it seems when they suddenly pop up off the ground. I read that it is called stotting.Love seeing Bert,as usual and look forward to the donkey operation day story.

Hi Dominique,Stotting - what a great word! I've never heard it before. We usually call it bouncing sickness - and thankfully we always seem to have an epidemic. They do seem spring loaded, don't they? Too cute. :)

I haven't used one of those lamb bar buckets, but I may have to look into it. These three ravenous little beasts are getting pushy!

Good eye! Marta (aka Marta Beast) is a tri cross: Great Pyrenees (which is what Daisy is), Komondor, and Anatolian Shepherd. She is goofy as all get out, sweet as can be, a fierce protector, and truly unique! She's also in desperate need of her spring shearing - before she finds any more mud puddles. :) You can see more photos of her here.

Gah, my head has exploded from the cute...the dogs, the lambs, the dogs and the lambs. It's too much! What a wonderful thing it must be to see/hear it all in person. Sleep deprivation, not so much--THAT I don't envy you!

Susan, is it possible for you to post a short video of those baby lambs and the dogs hopping around and interacting? I'm not sure I could survive the cuteness but I would LOVE to see them in action.... Thanks for sharing your life with us. I long so much for an internship on your farm....

I third the request for video footage. Those of us living in baby lamb-deprived big East Coast cities need some fun too, all we get to see are the baby rats (who are not without their own measure of cuteness) rustling in the garbage bags on the curb, and baby pigeons (who are without a doubt the most appalling-looking infants ever spawned) squalling loudly in poop-covered nests.

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